New Delhi: The Congress-DMK tussle over the portfolios has affected the swearing-in of Manmohan Singh's second government. Now, a small Cabinet will be sworn in on Friday evening. Sources told NDTV that no minister of state will take oath, but DMK MPs will attend the ceremony.
Along with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the following will be sworn in on Friday evening at the Rashtrapati Bhavan: Pranab Mukherjee, A K Antony, P Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal. S M Krishna, Murli Deora, Mamata Banerjee, Sharad Pawar and Kamal Nath are also tipped to join the Union Cabinet.
Earlier, the Congress and DMK failed to break the deadlock over portfolios. The Congress's standing firm, not giving in to DMK pressure meant that a miffed M Karunanidhi flew back to Chennai on Friday morning. Now the DMK may not attend Friday evening's swearing-in ceremony in New Delhi.
Meanwhile, sources told NDTV that DMK was not adamant on the portfolios they had demanded initially and was ready to consider different portfolios. Yet while Congress was pushing for Dayanidhi Maran to be in cabinet, DMK didn't want Congress to decide who should get what.
Earlier reports said that Congress was not ready to give the DMK more than 3 Cabinet berths and asked the DMK to drop one of its contenders.
Sources said the Congress was firm on not being blackmailed. The party couldn't apply different rules for DMK, they added.
One of the stumbling blocks is that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is not keen on T R Baalu and A Raja. The Congress had offered IT, Telecom, Chemicals & Fertilizer and Labour portfolios.
Now, they will be kept with the Prime Minister for the time being.
On Thursday evening, Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi called DMK chief M Karunanidhi to stop him leaving Delhi in a huff with his MPs ahead of the swearing in.
The DMK had decided to support the UPA government from outside after the Congress refused to accept its demand for nine ministerial berths including plum Cabinet posts like Railways, Telecom & IT, Power, Surface Transport and Health.
The DMK's 18 MPs constitute the third largest constituent in the UPA coalition.
"The Congress formula is not acceptable to us", DMK leader T R Baalu told reporters after talks between the two sides.
Baalu announced the breakdown of talks after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called up DMK chief M Karunanidhi who conveyed his rejection of the Congress proposal.
How ever Congress has said that everything is still a part of the discussion process and nothing untoward is going to happen.
Congress was ready for status quo in DMK's ministries. It was also ready to release telecom ministry to DMK, which earlier it did not want to give it to its southern ally.
DMK chief Karunanidhi's son M K Azhagiri, his grand nephew Dayanidhi Maran and T R Baalu are among the Cabinet probables from the party while his daughter Kanimozhi is among the likely candidates for the MoS slot.
Other UPA ally Trinamool Congress was also doing hard negotiations to get plum portfolios as Manmohan Singh gets ready to be sworn in on Friday for a second consecutive term as Prime Minister.
However, among the 'big four' portfolios Finance is likely to go to Pranab Mukherjee, while Home and Defence would be retained by P Chidambaram and A K Antony. There is no finality about who will bag External Affairs for which names of Kamal Nath and Kapil Sibal are doing the rounds.
(With PTI inputs)